Hurricane toll hits 600

Almost 600 people have been killed and dozens more are feared dead after floodwaters raged through Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Jeanne.

Aid workers are today desperately trying to reach a further 80,000 people left stranded without food or water on the rooftops of their homes.

In the worst hit northern coastal city of Gonaives, where 500 people have died, roads turned to rivers, with corpses floating past. A third of the dead taken to local hospitals were children.

"I lost my kids and there's nothing I can do," said Jesner Estimable, 35, who took the body of his two-year-old daughter to a mortuary. Soldiers put the corpse in a body bag while her mother wept. Another of their children is still missing.

Katya Silme, 18, said her family spent the night in a tree. "Now we have nothing," she said. "We have not eaten anything since the floods."

Tropical storm Jeanne hit the Caribbean last week, killing seven people in Puerto Rico before heading to the Dominican Republic where it killed at least 18. The toll is highest in Haiti, with 556 people confirmed dead.

In May, floods killed more than 3,000 people on the Haitian-Dominican border on the island of Hispaniola.